


Tolerable Toxicity Levels

by saltslimes



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: BACK ON MY BULLSHIT, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic, in 1-3 years that will be a major tag, its basically Exactly what u can expect if you have ever read a fic by me, like "dead dove do not eat", sick prompto
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-04
Updated: 2018-04-04
Packaged: 2019-04-18 07:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14208072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltslimes/pseuds/saltslimes
Summary: When you're a cafe manager who takes no shit but in general tries to be a nice person to your employees and one of said employees is a blonde idiot who looooves to faint at work and you have to bicycle him to the hospital well... what do you do? Call his mom, right? Except his contact listed as "Mom" isn't his mom, no, that would be too easy. It's gotta be the damn adviser to the prince for some unknowable reason.





	Tolerable Toxicity Levels

**Author's Note:**

> Third fill for [this](https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/3451.html?thread=3050363#cmt3050363) prompt
> 
> [Kaciart](http://kaciart.tumblr.com/) threw down an amazing pic of Aranea and sick Prom, and I remembered how bad I always wanted to do another fill for this prompt.

Ignis is pulling a load of laundry from the dryer when his phone buzzes. He ignores it in favor of savoring the warm towels and shirts for a second before he begins to fold. He has his own system for folding order and sorting, and it’s shaved a whole three minutes off his bi-weekly laundry routine at Noctis’ apartment. The prince himself comes slouching in a few minutes in to grab a clean shirt from the neatly folded pile and pull it on with no regard for the towels he’s just knocked over.

Ignis is collecting the fallen items and mentally adding a series of green vegetables to his shopping list when Noctis pokes him in the back.

“Why’s Prompto blowing up your phone?”

“He’s what?” Ignis straightens up and accepts the device from Noct’s outstretched hand. He has three missed calls from Noctis’ bubbly schoolfriend, who to Ignis’ estimate, exists solely to gush about the quality of Ignis’ baking and track mud into the apartment. Not that Ignis minds the compliments. It’s a nice change from having to decipher the emotions hidden in Noct’s indifferent expressions.

Ignis frowns at the phone. It  _ is _ odd that the boy would be calling him, and at this hour too. He’s doing Noctis’ laundry late after their meeting ran long, lest the prince have no underwear to wear to school. He wonders if it’s finally come to the point that the boy will ask for money, since people who cozy up to Noctis so quickly generally  _ want _ something, but it would be strange to ask Ignis and not the prince himself.

Before he has the chance to return the call, a text pops up.

“Hey, I have your son here.” The preview reads. Ignis’ frown intensifies.

“What is it?”

“I’m… not sure,” Ignis says. Noctis muscles in to read over his shoulder, and then snorts.

“Oh, you’re ‘Mom’ in his phone. Actually, in both our phones.”

“Ah. I wasn’t aware of that.” As Ignis is saying this, the phone rings in his hand, so he swipes it open.

“Hey, pick up your phone for fucks sake. Your kid is sick.”

“I’m afraid there may be have been a miscommunication here,” Ignis begins, but he’s cut off by a sharp “tsk” in his ear.

“Dammit, he can’t even get his mom’s number down right? So who the hell are you?”

“If you’re looking for Prompto’s mother I’m not her, but I am a…” he glances at Noct, who’s picking his nails anxiously and watching intently. He’s hearing the whole conversation, obviously. “A friend.”

“You had a pretty long, not-at-all suspicious pause there, ‘Mom.’”

“My apologies. It’s been a long night. You said Prompto was sick?”

“Well, yeah and no. Would you be able to find his mom in his phone? Actually, can you also bring him a change of clothes?”

Ignis hesitates to think.

“Ignis, ask where he is. Wait, ask what’s wrong with him.”

“Why don’t we come to you?”

“Sure.” She gives them an address, which Ignis keys into his phone. He stows the laundry in the basket. Noctis is inches away from warping through the door when it opens of its own accord.

“Where’s the fire?” Gladio asks, and Ignis and Noctis exchange a glance.

“We’re on a… mission of sorts,” Ignis says.

“Prom’s been kidnapped or something.” Noctis is hopping on one foot as he pulls his sneakers on.

“I suspect that isn’t true.” But still, Ignis produces the car keys swiftly. When Noctis holds his hands out for them, he merely shakes his head. “I think we will all be more comfortable if I drive. You can keep an eye on your phone for updates,” Ignis says. Noctis scowls, but doesn’t argue the point. That gets under Ignis’ skin, just a little. If he didn’t care much about him, he would argue.  _ If this is all a ploy for money _ …  _ no _ ,  he pushes those thoughts out of his head. There’s no sense in fretting over it. When a situation arises, he’ll deal with it.  _ You can’t deal with something that isn’t happening yet _ .

The address the woman on the phone gave him is not the hospital, but rather the cafe adjacent to it. There’s a woman out front holding two phones, reading something on one and dangling the other by its strap. The strap has a little chocobo on it. The woman has pale grey hair and a sharp face. She can’t be any older than Ignis or Gladio.

She spots them at about the same time they spot her, and pushes off the wall.

“Hey, are you Prompto’s friends?” she says.

“Who wants to know?” Gladio says without pausing, and Noctis makes a noise somewhere between a snort of laughter and a grunt of annoyance.

“How do you know Prompto?” Ignis asks. She pockets what  _ has _ to be Prompto’s phone and crosses her arms. They're at a sort of impasse.

“I’m his friend. His  _ best _ friend. I’m Noct--no, I’m Noct-Good-At-King’s-Knight in his phone.”

“Oh,  _ you’re _ the guy. I’m his boss. Well, his manager. Aranea.” She doesn’t make any attempt to shake anyone’s hand.

“And you wanted help contacting his parents?” Ignis prompts.

Aranea gives them a considering look; up and down.

“Nah. I mean, I did, but I think I found them and they’re not answering. And besides, the crown prince has got better resources. Which one of you is going to drive him home?”

Everyone looks at Ignis, not necessarily because that’s the answer, but because he should  _ have _ an answer. He stifles a sigh.

“I can do it.”

“Great! Come on, he’s just inside. Oh, you brought those clothes right?” 

“Yeah, well, some of mine,” Noctis says. Aranea leads them not into the coffee shop, but through the doors into the hospital.

“You and Prompto work at the drive-thru together?” Gladio says. Aranea turns, half-stopping. Gladio backs up and Noct walks into him.

“Ow, what the fuck Gladio.”

“The what?”

“The drive-thru. We saw him the other day, didn’t we?” Gladio’s looking to Ignis.

“I thought he worked at the arcade,” Noctis says.

“With me, he works at Insomnia Red Eye,” Aranea says. She looks like she’s adding something up.

“Oh,” Noct says. His voice is a tad blunted. Ignis takes a balancing breath through his nose. “That would explain why he has so many pictures of a random coffee shop,” Noctis continues. “I thought he just liked the awnings.”

“So that would make…” Gladio trails off.

“Three,” Ignis finishes.

“Yeah, I can count actually,” He snaps. Noctis muscles between the two of them and looks to Aranea, who takes his cue and steps through the sliding doors. She leads them up to a set of doors and catches the attention of the nurse at the desk.

“Hey, these guys have a change of clothes for Prompto Argentum, can we go through?”

“Oh yeah, go ahead,” the nurse says, waving them through. Inside, it’s a short walk to where Prompto is stationed. He’s sitting on a gurney across from the nurses’ station dressed in nothing but his socks and a grey-blue hospital gown. His cheeks are flushed, his hair is mussed, and he’s holding one of those kidney-shaped vomit bowls. Noctis rushes him and then backs up a step, presumably when he discovers the vomit bowl to be not empty.

Ignis shoots Aranea a questioning look, but she addresses Prompto instead.

“Okay, you know these guys, right?”

“I--what? How did you even--” Prompto sputters.

“Specs is still ‘Mom’ in your phone,” Noctis puts in.

“We brought you a change of clothes,” Gladio says, hefting the bag. Ignis spies Prompto’s previous clothes in a plastic bag beside Prompto. They look damp. Or rather… they have vomit on them.

“Did they discharge you?” Aranea asks. Prompto dips his head. He looks confused. He looks one step away from unconscious actually, and Ignis wants to question the doctor who discharged him.

“They said I can go home if someone will take me. But I--my parent aren’t--it’s better if you call me a cab.”

“I got one better. You’re friends with the crown prince apparently so his… hmm, bodyguards? These guys’ll take you home. Don’t say I never did anything for ya.”

“Nea, I never say that. You’re my heroooo.” Prompto attempts a one-handed finger gun while still balancing his vomit receptacle. It ends in a retch, and him hunching back over quickly. The overall effect is…. Pitiable?  _ Oh, Astrals _ . Ignis pinches the bridge of his nose. Aranea is wearing a surprisingly similar expression. She has her arms crossed.

“The docs said he just passed out from dehydration, but he basically hasn’t stopped puking since he showed up to work. I’d take him home but I biked us here, and let me tell you that was an ordeal I’m not interested in repeating.”

“Wow, you must have strong legs,” Gladio says. Ignis resists the urge to just--throttle  _ something _ . Aranea winks at Gladio. Actually, that might have been intended for Ignis.

“Kay, don’t come into work unless you have a doctor’s note clearing you.”

“But the weekend shift--”

“Manager problem. Not your problem. Oh and uh, prince, I can borrow your smart-looking bodyguard for a minute, right?”

“Hey!” Gladio says, as Ignis is saying, “I’m his adviser, as it happens.”

Aranea’s face splits in a grin (or at least, she’s showing a lot more teeth than before). “Even better.”

“Prompto, why don’t you get changed and we can give you a ride home?” Ignis says. “I’ll just be a moment.” He hears Prompto beginning to protest even as he’s turning to leave, but Noctis quickly interjects that it’s not like he can walk home.

Ignis follows Aranea a ways down the hall and around a corner where they can talk.

“My thought is that the prince would like to make the kid’s medical bill go away.”

“Oh. Is it? And what does he think of this?”

“Well, if either of us tell him we’re probably going to get puked on. Or he’ll just die on the spot. You saw him at a drive-thru?”

“Yes, Gladiolus and I did.”

“And the prince knew he works at an arcade.”

“Yes.”

“I know it’s probably in your job description to be suspicious but… do you think someone trying to use the prince for his money and connections would go to work with food poisoning so bad he fainted?”

“Well, no.”

Aranea pauses a moment like she has something on the tip of her tongue and she hasn’t yet decided if she’s going to swallow it. She shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

“You want to hear a theory? How he got sick in the first place?”

“Enlighten me.”

“I think his parents left him so behind on rent all he eats is leftovers from work. They’re not in his phone, period, by the way. I found two people with his last name and both numbers are disconnected. The most recent thing he has is a month old email, and it just says they miss him and hope he does well on his exams.”

“Well that’s certainly damning.”

“If you mention even the fact that I know about this--well--it’s probably treason to threaten you. So let that be a stand-in.”

“You care about him a lot, I see.”

“If you knew him half as well as I do, you’d be shaking with rage.”

“You’re mistaking me for a person who shakes with rage, ever.” Ignis says. Aranea gives him that not-quite-grin again. For the first time in a while, Ignis feels real fear. Everything about her is carnivorous. But Ignis follows her back to where Prompto is back on the gurney, listing into Noct’s side and wearing the borrowed sweats and t-shirt. His freckles are drowned in pink, and his eyes are glassy. 

Ignis thinks about rending fabric when he repairs the hem on a set of sheets Noctis is not ready to let go of. He thinks about scraping burnt cake into the garbage. He thinks about the kind of people who do this to someone, tries to worm his way into their psyche so he can understand their logic, their reasoning. The notions he comes up with are to ugly.

Aranea kisses Prompto’s sweaty forehead. Ignis aches to be out of the hospital, to be behind the wheel, to be anywhere but this clean linoleum hallway.

“Got all your things?” he prompts, when Aranea has left.

“Uh, yeah,” Prompto says. Ignis watches Gladio run his thumb over his lower lip, like he’s thinking.

“Come on, I’m pretty sure Iggy parked illegally,” Notcis says, grabbing Prompto’s hand when he steps off the gurney and sways. Gladio’s hand braced on his shoulder probably does more.

“I most certainly did not.” He double checked the posted sign, as it happens. Noctis snorts. He and Prompto chat about homework and school until they get to the actual car. Prompto seems to lose his exuberance, or the shadow of it he was displaying in the hospital. Ignis glances in the rearview mirror and sees Noctis chewing on his lip and Prompto slumped against the door with his head on the window.

“Sorry you had to pick me up. I should have--I dunno, I shouldn’t have let Aranea take my phone.”

“It’s no trouble,” Ignis says, as Noctis is opening his mouth to say something no doubt more volatile and easily misconstrued. Gladio hasn’t said much, but he has his fist clenched tight in his lap. Three jobs, and school, Ignis thinks. He pulls up to a stoplight and steals another glance at the back seat, It’s a miracle he’s in this good a state, all things considered.

“Um, not to complain ‘cause, free ride and all but--my house is that way?” Prompto gestures with a hand that’s trembling slightly. 

“Uh, yeah. You’re coming to my house. My apartment, I mean.”

“Oh. I’m--I am?”

“We’re not going to just leave you rotting alone in an empty house,” Gladio growls. Ignis elects not to chide him for choice of language, because it will get exhausting quickly.

“I do need to make a quick stop though,” he says.

“Huh?”

“We are generally quite well stocked with regards to home remedies, but things have been busy since Noctis’ last bout of the flu, and I’ve neglected to replace a few things. It should only be a minute.”

No one protests. At any rate, it turns out to be a good idea, because while Ignis is circling the grocery store lot for a space, Noctis cries out: “Iggy, stop the car!” and he slams the car to a squealing halt just in time for Prompto to throw open the door and be sick onto the tarmac.

“I’m--good,” Prompto chokes between breaths, and Gladio shoots Ignis a look he recognizes from days when Noctis was a lot more stubborn and a lot more in pain. He tosses Gladio the keys.

“Why don’t you park it when--ah,  _ while _ I do my shopping.”

“Got it.” Gladio says. 

///// X /////

The sun is half-set over the parking lot so the Stop N Save sign is lit in glowing pink. Gladio rolls the keys in his hands and watches Prompto spit bile into the small puddle on the asphalt. When he tilts forward bonelessly Gladio moves, but he knows he won’t be fast enough.

“Noct!”

Noctis is already there, he wraps a hand around Prompto’s chest and pushes him back into the car. Gladio scans the parking lot for any sign of Ignis. Five minutes is feeling like a calendar year. He comes around the side of the car, stepping carefully to avoid the puddle, and leans in to press a hand to Prompto’s forehead. It’s hot, yeah, he definitely has a fever, but it can’t be that high if they let him leave the hospital. Ignis will have a thermometer stashed at Noct’s place anyways.

“I can’t believe Aranea called Ignis looking for my  _ mom _ . He already thinks I’m a dumbass!” Prompto whines, batting Gladio’s hand away with the strength of a dying kitten.

Gladio snorts.

“Thinks?”

“Dude he already knows you’re a dumbass,” Noctis says. Prompto laughs until he gags again, but there’s nothing to throw up, sp he just ends up coughing nasty yellow bile into the space Gladio hastily vacated.

“Ughhh this sucks.”

“You should have thought of that before you decided to like, work an ungodly number of jobs.”

Prompto just flips Noct off in lieu of response.

“Hey Gladio is flipping off the prince a capital offence?”

“Hey Gladio can Noctis be deposed for--” He claps a hand over his mouth and Gladio wrestles through a fight or flight response that tells him he should be thinking of the best way to dodge.

“You good?” Noctis hazards. Prompto nods.

“Yeah, I’m not gonna. I’m done.”

“Ah, we never made it as far as a space.” The relief permeating the general radius of the car is palpable. Ignis is hefting two shopping bags. Gladio trades him for the keys, and they get the OK from the back to start out again. 

They make it back to Noctis’ place without any further stops, and by then Ignis is in full command mode. He organizes Prompto onto the couch, Noctis to the kitchen to do his homework and Gladio to try to get Prompto hydrated. Of course, all that falls apart in about twenty minutes, because Prompto ends up puking in the bathroom and Noctis ends up in there with him playing phone games and gossiping about people at school and Gladio wanders into the kitchen to bother him (which is fun and hilarious) but it’s nice that he tried.

“His manager told me some quite unpleasant things about his parents,” Ignis says, almost casually, but the grip his has on the spoon he’s using gives him away.

“How bad?”

Rather than answer, Ignis glances in the direction of the bathroom. Prompto and Noctis’ voices can be half heard, but the words warp beyond comprehension when they hit the tiles and reverberate. Still, Ignis shakes his head slightly.

“I’ll tell you later. Possibly over a stiff drink or so.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Three jobs, Gladio. And can you believe last week I was telling him it shouldn’t be so hard to bring up his chemistry grades.”

“Yeah well, it’s not like he told us. Or even Noctis.”

“I thought… I thought he was secretive because he was putting on an act. We’ve had people…”

“You were half-right, if it counts for anything,” Gladio says, shrugging and picking up an apple off the counter. Ignis scrutinizes him, but he refuses to shrink under his gaze.

“Hmm.” He almost looks like he’s considering. “It doesn’t really.”

“Fair enough.”

“Would you be so kind as to take this to Prompto. And at least try to get him into a bed or onto the couch.”

“You got it.” Gladio accepts the tray from Ignis. It’s beautiful, as can be expected.

///// X /////

Truthfully, Noct isn’t paying much attention to King’s Knight. Prompto’s head keeps sagging towards the toilet and he keeps having to prop him back up and the whole situation is making his stomach twist up in knots so bad he almost wishes he was the one puking his guts out.

Gladio hulks up in the doorway like a beefy heavensend.

“Ignis really wants you to quit being in the bathroom,” he says. The way Prompto’s head pops up is almost comical.

“Does he need it? Sorry.” He tries to shove himself to his feet but Noctis grabs his wrist.

“Whoa.”

“No, he just wants you resting somewhere you can actually sleep.”

“Psht, I don’t even need sleep. And I also… don’t want to sleep.” Prompto’s face is pained. Noctis feels like the bottom has come out of his sneakers and his feet are being ground raw by the rough cement. There’s this whole range of emotions and problems his best friend had-- _ has _ and they’ve known each other a little over a year but he didn’t know  _ shit _ about them.

“You definitely need sleep,” he counters. “Come back out to the couch. You can breathe down my neck while I do homework just like Iggy does.”

“As if you do homework dude.”

“Okay, living room then,” Gladio does an about-face in the doorway and leaves with the tray. Noctis offers Prom his hand and heaves him up.

“If I puke on your couch am I banned forever or what’s the policy here?”

“Policy is that there is a puke bucket for you to use. Also you’re gonna have to try harder than that to get banned officially.”

“Puke on the console.”

“That’s a lot closer.”

Prompto’s shivering when they get to the couch, but Ignis denies the request for more blankets.

“He has a fever. One is enough. Eat your soup,” Ignis says, stripping off a glove to palm Prompto’s forehead. “Tell one of us if you feel worse, understood?”

“Um, yeah. You sure? Don’t you all have like, important royal shit to do?”

“Meh,” Noctis says.

“It can wait, for the moment. And besides, I have ample opportunity right now to catch up on reports.”

“I don’t have shit on all day,” Gladio says.

Noctis talks Prompto into eating the soup, because he’s Noctis, and he’s got that power as a god-given right. And then Prompto pukes it up, because it’s his (presumably) in-born nature.

By the time Gladio goes home, Noctis is trapped on the couch because Prompto has fallen asleep with his head in his lap and he’s not about to wake him up. Still like this, the flush on Prompto’s face looks even more unnatural, and the circles under his eyes so deep and dark Noctis struggles with how he never noticed them before.

He can hear Ignis turning pages softly at the table, and that soft “huh” he makes when he reads something he considers to be incorrect, which he probably thinks no one notices.

Half-lost in the blankets, Prompto’s phone buzzes, and Noctis scoops it up and silences it before it can wake him. He peeks at the message preview. It’s from Aranea. At least, he figures “Madam-Boss-Lady” is Aranea.

“Hey shitass, remember not to die. Drink lots of fluids.”

Noctis feels a rush of gratitude so strong he has to close his eyes against it. He puts the phone on the arm of the couch and presses back in the pillows, and lays a hand on Prompto’s arm so that he can feel the rise and fall of his chest if he concentrates. Ignis turns a page and makes the huh sound. The TV plays on silently. Everything inches close enough to okay.

**Author's Note:**

> While I was writing this fic I learned that I was spelling "adviser" wrong. And Aranea. So u learn something every day, kids.
> 
> I did this instead of an overdue reading response for my fucking class so I hope u all appreciate it
> 
> apologies to my lovely beta for posting this without ur divine wisdom, my grubby hands are powered by the devil himself and i succumbed to my "smash that post button at 4 am" addiction


End file.
